Red Moon
by Verdreht
Summary: Roy Mustang was always afraid of becoming a monster. What happens when Shou Tucker takes his fear and makes it reality? When everything goes wrong, will Ed be able to remind Roy that he's only human...so to speak. ChimeraRoy RoyxEd Slash post-Shambala
1. Chapter 1

_Hughes frowned and pressed himself against the wall. He wasn't liking the look of this place – not at all. Too many bodies littered the floor, some human, and some…not so much. _

_ There was blood everywhere, spilling out onto the water-slicked floor and squelching under the booted feet of he and his team. _

_ "Is this the place?" he heard Havoc whisper from behind him. Part of him wanted to say no, part of him wanted to say yes. He didn't want this to be the place because if it was…there was a high possibility that they wouldn't be finding him alive. If this wasn't the place though…well, it had already been two months. Two months the man had been missing. _

_ It didn't help that the poor guy hadn't exactly been…stable before all of this happened. Living through the apparent deaths of his best friend and his boyfriend, and then watching them both come back three years later…well, he couldn't blame the guy for having trouble with the idea. The war between worlds certainly didn't help with that. It had been like Ishbal all over again – forced to kill innocents just because they were alien, and happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. _

_ Still, they'd been working through it. He and Edward had only been back in this world for a few months – only long enough, it seemed, for the man to finally wrap his head around their return – before this happened. _

_ Another reason to hope that this wasn't the place: Ed was all the way in West City on a lead. If they found him in some kind of state, which, given the state of the place, seemed more likely than not at this point, it would have been nice to have Ed there. _

_ Then again, if they found him dead, he wasn't sure he would've wanted the young alchemist to see it first-hand. _

_ He shook his head. He couldn't think like that. He had to be optimistic, right? _

_ "Keep going," he said. "If he's in here, we'll find him." And they would, because after everything this man had done for all of them – the protection he'd offered them all from the horrors of the world around them – he deserved to be saved. _

_ Suddenly, there was a sound coming from behind them, a feral-sounding snarl, and Hughes whipped around, gun out and trained ahead lest they had stumbled upon another freed chimera. _

_ What he saw, however, was not some abominable mix between man and beast, nor was it one of the many despicable mercenaries they'd encountered. _

_ It was a dog. Or no, maybe wolf would be more fitting. The thing was more massive than any dog Hughes had ever seen, standing easily at four feet._

_ With its midnight black fur, the creature stood out stark against the light of their flashlights, crouched low to the ground as it stared ahead at them with its mismatched eyes. An icy blue orb gleamed from the left, but on the right, a sharp onyx orb glittered in the light. _

_ The shredded remains of fabric clinging to its haunches – what looked to have been pants at one time – brought forth some curiosity from Hughes. Who would clothe a wolf?_

_ Then again, what stood before him probably wasn't a wolf at all._

_ Suddenly, a look akin to recognition passed over the creature, and it gave a start, its head lifted back and away in an expression that was altogether just a little too human. Just as quickly as the look appeared, however, it was gone._

_ And so was the wolf, tearing off down the halls. Too shocked to follow it just yet, Hughes couldn't help noticing as it ran the way only three of its feet ever touched the ground, the other held up as if it was injured. _

_ The moment it turned the corner, Hughes snapped out of his daze. "With me," he commanded, taking off after the wolf. In the back of his mind, he vaguely acknowledged that what he was doing was the same sort of recklessness he tended to chide his best friend for. Despite that, he couldn't seem to bring himself to care. _

_ As he rounded the corner after the creature, his feet slid in the bloody mess on the floor. He managed to catch himself though, gaining his speed again as Hawkeye and Havoc matched his pace. He wasn't sure how long he ran, down corridor after corridor led only by a flash of tail around the corner. Eventually, he stopped seeing the flashes of tail, hearing instead the scratching of nails across the floor. _

_ When even that faded, Hughes slowed his pace, holding up his hand. "I think he's stopped," he whispered, continuing at a much slower pace down the dark hallways. Now that he wasn't barreling down them, he got a chance to look around at the halls around him. Rows upon rows of broken cell doors marked the halls, and the smell…God the smell. He couldn't place his finger on what it was, but it was familiar, and it was unpleasant. _

_ And then, with a closer glance at a broken cell gate, he remembered. The smell was that of burning flesh, and the bars of the cells weren't broken…_

_ They were melted. _

_ "He was here," he breathed, eyes drawn inexplicably into one of the cells. He almost didn't want to look, but he had to. Something made him. _

_ It was there that he saw them. The charred, bloody bodies of the creatures. The remains of their pitiful mouths were open in silent screams, some more human than others. _

_ Hughes almost felt sick to his stomach. _

_ In the silence brought on by his pause though, he started to hear something. Not the pounding of footsteps, not the snarls of the wolf. Soft sounds, the sounds of heavy breath and unspeakable pain. _

_ The sounds were human. _

_ Now Hughes ran. He ran like hell itself was behind him – but it wasn't what was behind him that mattered, it was what was in front of him. He knew that sound, knew that pain too well not to recognize it, so he ran until the sound stopped._

_ Because the source of the noise was looking straight at him, curled in the corner of a broken cell. For a moment, they froze, each staring at the other and neither having the ability to move. _

_ Hughes swallowed, unable to quite grasp the horror in front of him. "Roy…"_

_ And then all hell broke loose._

_ With a crazed cry, Roy scrambled to his feet, only to collapse again to his hands and knees. He didn't stop though, he threw himself forward, trying to reach the gate, only to have his path blocked by Hughes. _

_ Realizing that he was effectively trapped, Roy's eyes grew wide, darting back and forth around the cell trying to find an exit. _

_ His eyes._

_ His multi-colored eyes. _

_ "Oh God, what have they done to you?" Hughes breathed as realization set in. He had found the wolf, and he had found the man, because the two were one in the same. The human in front of him wasn't just human anymore. _

_ At the question, horror filled those mismatched eyes, and Roy fell backwards onto his hands. "Don't," he choked out, backing away. He pulled himself back with one arm, keeping the other folded tightly around his chest. He pushed himself back with only one leg as the other dragged limply along the ground, blood smearing on the ground in its wake. _

_ He didn't stop until he hit the wall, his bare back pressed firmly against its frigid surface as he pulled his knee to his chest. Even from where Hughes stood, he could see the man shaking. He couldn't tell if it was the chill – the only clothes the man wore were tattered pants, barely enough to keep his decency, and certainly not enough to keep him warm – or if the man was going into shock. From the amount of blood that covered him, hopefully not all his own, it seemed likely that he was injured. His leg, especially, appeared to be in bad shape, with Roy apparently unable to do so much as move it._

_ "It's okay, Roy, you're safe now," Hughes whispered, slowly moving forward. As soon as the sound of his voice died, though, he heard another sound. Growls, he realized. _

_ Roy was growling at them, his lip curled back to show canines just a little too sharp to be entirely human. _

_ Then he realized that Roy wasn't staring at him, but past him. He turned, and saw that the others had finally caught up to him. _

_ They were frightening him. Intimidating him. They needed to go. _

_ "Everyone out," Hughes commanded. _

_ "But sir—" Fuery started, but Hughes held up a hand. _

_ "That's an order. Out. Now." _

_ And because it was an order, they had no choice but to do what he said. He waited until they were out of sight before moving again, crouching down low and holding his hands out in front of him. His gun had long since been holstered. _

_ "There you go, Roy. Just you and me. Is that okay?" _

_ But Roy didn't answer, he just pressed himself back further against the wall, his eyes wide with panic. _

_ Now that he was still, Hughes was starting to notice the injuries. One side of his chest was dented in, and the corresponding shoulder misshapen. Cuts and scrapes, most in groupings of three or four littered his body, smearing it with blood that prevented Hughes from getting a better idea of his wounds. He needed to act quickly. _

"_I'm going to come closer, okay?" he said, taking another step forward. _

"_Stop," Roy choked out. He was no longer looking at Hughes, his head tucked instead against his folded knee, one arm blocking his face from view. _

_Hughes almost did. The desperation – the sheer __**terror**__ in Roy's voice – nearly stopped him in his tracks. But he didn't let it, because he knew that even though that was what he wanted, it wasn't what Roy needed. _

"_It's okay," he said instead, keeping his voice quiet and comforting. It was the tone he'd grown all to used to using in the years following Ishbal, when the world got too much for his friend to bear. "I'm not going to hurt you." _

_At that, Roy lifted his head. The fear in his eyes was joined now by a haunted look that was all too familiar. "You saw them?" he asked in barely more than a whisper. _

_Hughes paused. "Saw who?"_

_But Roy barely seemed to hear him. "Killed them." His fingers tightened into a fist in his long, midnight black hair. "Killed them all." _

_The chimera, Hughes realized. He was talking about the chimera. Roy had killed them. _

"_I know," Hughes said, kneeling in front of Roy. He was close enough to reach out and touch him now, and Roy recoiled from him. "I'm not going to hurt you, Roy." _

_Roy's head darted up. "Get away!" he screamed, lunging at Hughes. For a second, he thought that Roy was going to attack him. The next moment though, he realized that Roy wasn't jumping at him, but past him, and he turned just in time to see Roy tackle a massive, hairy beast that had somehow crept up behind him. _

"_Roy, get back!" Hughes shouted, pulling his gun around. He couldn't get a clear shot at the beast, with the way the two were wrestling around. Roy had latched an arm around the thing's throat, digging a knee into the creature's pronounced spine to gain leverage as the thing batted at him with massive claws. "Roy!" _

_He felt his heart stop as the thing sent Roy sprawling to the ground. It was on him in a flash, blocking Roy from sight entirely. _

_Before Hughes could get his gun trained though, there was a sound, like a clap, and the room suddenly lit up. The creature was on fire, wailing in pain as Roy wrenched himself free of the beast. _

_Alchemy, he realized, with no circle or anything. _

_But…Roy wasn't wearing his gloves. _

_He didn't get much of a chance to linger on that thought though, as the flames on the creature strengthened tenfold. The monstrosity was dead in an instant. _

_And Roy was disappearing down the hall, somehow managing to stay upright as he tripped and stumbled. _

_Now, Hughes could see why he was having so much trouble running. Blood wept down the whole of his left leg from long gashes around both sides of his thigh and even from where he stood, he could tell there were broken bones. _

_He couldn't let Roy run like that. _

_Steeling himself, he ran forward, slipping his gun back in its holster and his flashlight in his pocket. It wasn't hard to catch up to Roy, and when he did, he grabbed the smaller man around the waist, pinning his arms at his sides. _

_Roy screamed, a wild, feral sound that made Hughes's insides churn. With deceptive strength for someone so injured, he struggled against Hughes's arms. _

"_I need some help here!" Hughes shouted, hoping that his team wasn't too far away to hear him as he wrestled his captive to the ground. _

_The call for help only made Roy fight harder, even as Hughes managed to push him to the ground. With any and every limb he could manage to move, Roy lashed out at Hughes until the man managed to grab hold of both of his wrists, binding them in cuffs and holding them behind his back. _

_Now that he had his arms, he could see why one had looked so misshapen. His right arm was dislocated, from the looks of things, and he knew that the pressure he was exerting on it had to hurt like hell. He wouldn't move around with it like that though. _

_Sure enough, Roy went dead still, screaming into the cold ground. _

"_I know it hurts," Hughes said, trying to soothe the frantic man. "Just try to bear it for just a little longer, okay?" Maybe it was working, he thought. He'd stopped screaming, reduced now to soft, unintelligible moans. _

_As the sound of heavy boots struck his ears, and lights hit the corridor, he let out a sigh of relief. "Help's coming," he said. _

_At that, Roy let out a quiet, hysterical laugh. "Don't want help," he whispered, his voice broken and raw from screaming. "Just let me die."_

_With those words, Roy lost his tenuous hold on consciousness, and fell limp in Hughes's grasp._


	2. Chapter 2

"Where is he?" Ed demanded, slamming the door to Hughes's office open with a bang. Hughes looked up at him, and suddenly Ed felt himself shrinking back. The man looked awful, with dark, heavy bags beneath his eyes and a three day accumulation of five o'clock shadows on his chin.

He felt his heart lurch, and his stomach drop. "Hughes, is he…" he trailed off. He couldn't finish that sentence.

To Ed's relief, Hughes shook his head, standing up from behind his desk and running a tired hand through his hair. "He's alive. Pretty banged up, but he's not going to die."

"But there's a catch, isn't there? Hughes, what's wrong with him? You wouldn't say anything over the phone."

Hughes sighed. He really didn't want to be the one telling Ed this, but he felt it was sort of his responsibility. He'd been there, and Ed was almost like a son to him. He couldn't very well leave him high and dry.

Placing a reassuring hand on Ed's shoulder, he started walking. "I think you'd better see for yourself," he said.

Ed decidedly didn't like the sound of that. If it was something that the man felt he couldn't say, then it had to be bad. The guy had told him about Roy's trying to kill himself once, and hadn't seemed this upset, so whatever was going on with his Roy, with his Mustang, it had to be bad.

He felt that sinking feeling in his gut getting worse as he followed Hughes down the hallway. He knew where they were going. Hughes had said they'd cleared out a whole quad of isolation cells and put Roy in one of those – already a bad sign – so he knew what to expect as he followed Hughes downstairs into the basement, through the locked steel doors into the isolation sector.

Roy's quad was the first, closest to the door and furthest from all of the prisoners. Technically, it was the medical ward for prisoners, making it the best equipped for Roy's condition.

The quad as a whole was sound proof, to keep the prisoners from making such a riot about the place, but the second they stepped into the quad, the most bone-chilling screams filled Ed's ears. The frenzy and the terror were enough to make the very sound of it painful to hear, but more than anything was the fact that it was Roy's voice making the anguished sounds.

Hughes gave his shoulder a sympathetic squeeze, and kept walking, leaving Ed to follow dazedly in his path. Eventually, they reached the door to Roy's cell, where Hughes stopped him.

"Why are we stopping?" Ed demanded, doing his best to look around Hughes to see into the window of the door. He needed to see Roy, needed to help him and stop his piteous cries.

But Hughes wouldn't budge. "Ed, I need you to listen to me," he said, and Ed finally pried his eyes away from the door. "Ed, remember when I told you that we found Roy in a lab?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah, you said Tucker had been using it to research chimeras. You said that they were all dead before you got there."

This was where Hughes made a face. "Well…I wasn't exactly honest about that part," he said. "There was still one chimera left alive."

Ed didn't like where this was going – didn't like it at all. Hughes was dancing around the subject, and he didn't have time for it! "What do you mean one left? Hughes, out with it already! What's wrong with Roy?"

"Roy's different now," Hughes said after a moment. "We're not sure to what extent the changes are, but Tucker did something to him."

Ed paled. "Is that why you locked him up down here? Because he's a—"

"Chimera," Hughes finished for him, and then shook his head. "No, if that was all, he'd be at home in bed. You know we wouldn't do this to him if we had a choice."

"Then why?"

"Because whatever Tucker did to him changed him a lot more than physically. He's a wreck, Ed. He's put three of our guys in the hospital trying to get out." He paused when he saw the look on Ed's face. "Nothing serious, just concussions," he added. "But he won't let anyone near him. We had to knock him out just to keep him still long enough to patch him up."

"What do you mean, patch him up? He's hurt?" This just kept getting worse.

Hughes nodded and grabbed a clipboard off the wall next to the door, handing it to Ed. He wasn't so sure he wanted to look through it, but he did anyway.

He wished he hadn't.

From the head down, he had a mild concussion, dislocated right shoulder, four broken ribs, two broken fingers on his right hand, a cracked pelvis and…

"God, his leg," Ed breathed, feeling nausea rise in his stomach at the ex-rays and pictures, growing sicker with each passing sheet of paper.

Hughes nodded gravely. "Left leg. Fractured femur, broken fibula, deep lateral wounds on the thigh," he recited. "He has a steel splint on it now until the swelling goes down, and then the doctor will consider giving him a plaster. Can't do much of anything though, with the way he's moving around in there."

Ed looked up, a troubled look on his face. "Haven't you…" he stopped, trying to think of the right word.

Again, Hughes finished his sentence for him. "Restrained him? We tried. It's how he broke his hand. 'bout had a mental breakdown too. We can't keep him sedated enough to do it until we get his blood work-ups back. We don't know his blood chemistry well enough to drug him."

"Oh." Hughes nodded. "Is that everything, then?" He found it hard to believe that there could be anything else.

"Just watch out for his hands, okay?"

Ed nodded. "Yeah, the broken one? Got it."

Hughes frowned. "No, Ed. I mean, yes, watch out for his broken hand, but…Roy's dangerous, okay, Ed?"

"He's scared!" Ed retorted, fury bubbling in his chest. How could Hughes say something like that about his best friend. Of course Roy lashed out at people. From everything Ed had heard, he had every right to be afraid of anything that walked, talked, or breathed.

But Hughes didn't back down. "No, Ed, it's more than that. I'm not saying he's a nut job or anything – you know me better than that."

"Then what the hell are you talking about?" Seriously, why wouldn't Hughes just cut to the fucking chase?

"He's doing alchemy without circles."

Oh.

"And I don't know if he's got control over it."

Ohh.

That could be bad.

Ed shook his head. He wouldn't let that stop him from looking after Roy. Besides, the clipboard said that Roy's arm was in a pretty heavy duty sling. Even without circles, he'd need two hands to do alchemy, so even if he was having trouble with it, it wouldn't be a problem.

"I got it, Hughes. Can I see him now?"

Hughes seemed to hesitate for a moment, but then produced a set of keys from his belt. "Good luck, Ed. I hope you can get through to him," he said, and with that, he unlocked the door.

The second Ed stepped in the door, the screaming stopped. Amber eyes matched blue and black as Roy watched his new intruder.

Ed was transfixed. For the most part, Roy looked the same. His black hair had been cut since the pictures in the file, no doubt while he was unconscious, so that it matched its old style: short, but longer in the front with bangs that fell over his left eye. His face was still the same, and his build was still much the same, if maybe a little leaner.

Really, it was only when he looked closely that he saw the changes. The eyes were fairly obvious. His right eye was still that same charcoal black, but his left, the eye that Ed knew he'd lost, was a bright blue. The scars surrounding the orb were the only things that stood as testament to the injury he'd suffered there.

Looking a little harder, smaller changes began to stick out. Like how his ears were strangely pointed. It didn't even look strange, the difference was so slight; it was just there.

"Roy?" he called softly.

Roy's head snapped up, those pointed ears twitching at the sound of his name. It was only then that Roy really seemed to notice he was there. Like he'd seen him, but not really _seen_ him until Ed had called his name.

And then he panicked.

"Get out!" Roy screamed, eyes shifting about the room, as if he was looking for something. He seemed to find it in the form of the blankets on the bed, because he reached out for them with his uninjured arm.

Ed could only watch as Roy pulled the blanket around himself, ducking his head under it like he was trying to hide his face.

And then Ed realized that was exactly what he was doing. Hiding his face. Hiding the mutations Ed had been staring at only seconds before.

_Ed you idiot,_ he cursed himself, hurrying over to Roy and dropping to his knees in front of the injured man. "Roy, it's okay," he said, reaching for the blanket that hung down in Roy's face.

Roy batted his hand away, holding the blanket tighter and bowing his head. "Get out, get out, get out, get out," he seethed, rocking himself back and forth.

But Ed knew Roy better. He knew that Roy wanted anything but more isolation. He didn't want to be alone any more than Ed wanted to leave him alone.

"No," he said instead, taking hold of the blanket and prying it gently from Roy's grip. It wasn't hard, despite the fervor with which Roy clutched onto the blanket – the man only had one hand to use.

"Stop," Roy protested, trying feebly to grab the blanket back, but Ed balled it up and tossed it away. "No!" he cried, his cover now gone and his mutations exposed to the one person he wanted least to see them. It didn't matter how small they were – pointy ears, colored eyes, sharp canines – just that they were wrong. _He_ was wrong.

"Don't look at me," he whimpered weakly, reaching over his shoulder with his good arm. For a second, Ed wasn't sure what he was doing, until he started tugging at his shirt. He could barely lift his arm over his head, no doubt thanks to his ribs, but still he tried, pulling his shirt up over his head and tucking his face into his knee. "Please go away."

It was breaking Ed's heart. "Roy…"

"I said go away!" Roy screamed, lashing out at Ed with his only good arm. Ed caught it easily, and held it as he pulled Roy close. "Let me go!" he protested, twisting and squirming in Ed's grip. "Please!"

"Shh, it's okay," Ed soothed, and tightened his hold on Roy as he started struggling harder.

"How is it okay?" Roy demanded. "How the fuck is it okay?" Even through the anger, Ed noticed he sounded close to tears.

"You're safe now, and you're gonna be alright. That's how it's okay."

Roy snarled at that, somehow managing to jerk himself free of Ed. Ed expected him to back away then, like he seemed to want to do, but the very next moment, Roy tackled him, a hand going to Ed's throat as the two of them collapsed on the ground.

"I'm a monster!" he roared. "A crime against God!" He tightened his grip on Ed's neck, his pupils dilating as his breath came harder. "I'm not even human anymore, Ed! It's never going to be okay!"

"Roy," Ed gasped. He could've freed himself, but he didn't want to hurt Roy.

Luckily, that seemed to do it, and with a cry, Roy threw himself back, collapsing on the floor in a ball and clutching his head. Ed was at his side in an instant, watching as the veins in Roy's neck began to bulge and his fingers began to cramp.

Roy screamed, thrashing on the floor as his bones and muscles shifted beneath his skin. As Roy's mouth opened in an agonized cry, Ed watched his canines lengthen, blood weeping up from his gums at the shift.

"Hughes, he needs help!" Ed shouted, pulling Roy up into his lap. The man was thrashing too much, and Ed was terrified that he would hurt himself beyond what he was already feeling.

The door opened right as Roy let out another scream, and Hughes was there beside him.

"Hughes, what's happening to him?" Ed asked, eyes darting frantically from Roy to Hughes. Hughes responded by helping Ed to lower Roy to the ground, holding him flat and straight on the floor.

"Make it stop," Roy pleaded, twisting and writhing in their grasps. "Please!"

Hughes reached over and grabbed the blanket Ed had thrown on the floor and tucked it under Roy's head. "Deep breaths, Roy, remember?" he instructed gently.

"This happened before?" Ed asked, glancing over at Hughes.

"This is the third," Hughes replied with a grimace. "He's only made it all the way through once though. If we can calm him down, it should pass." He turned his attention to Roy, running a thumb across his cheek. "Are you listening to me, Roy? I need you to listen to me and Ed, okay?"

"Can't breathe, ca—" Roy's gasps were cut off by another scream that ripped from his throat as another wave of pain tore through his body.

He wasn't paying attention anymore. He wasn't listening to either Hughes or Ed, too much in pain to even process what they were saying.

Ed knew he had to do something about that. As carefully as he could, he took hold of Roy's face, holding his head still and pushing his eyes open. "Look at—Roy! Look at me," he commanded. Slowly, mismatched, pain-filled eyes came to focus, and Ed smiled at him. It was all he could do not to cry himself, but he forced himself to keep the comforting smile on his face. "It's gonna be okay, alright?" Roy didn't say anything, but Ed noticed he stopped struggling, staring up at Ed with something akin to mute amazement. "I'm here now, okay, and you're here too. Anything else we can figure out later."

Just like that, something in Roy seemed to break, and tears filled his bi-colored eyes. "I'm sorry," he choked out, covering his face with a single blue-veined hand. "I'm so sorry."

Sitting back a little, Ed wove the fingers of his human hand through Roy's and slowly moved it away from his face.

Though everything appeared to have returned to normal – relatively speaking – Roy averted his eyes.

"C'mon now, Roy, look at me will ya?" he asked, his own voice reedy from tears he tried not to shed. Roy didn't do it immediately, but Ed waited patiently until finally, he was looking at him again. "You don't have anything to be sorry for, okay? You're not a monster or an abomination or anything. You're Roy Mustang, and I love you."

And with that, he pressed a light kiss to Roy's cracked lips. When he sat back, all the pain on Roy's face was gone, replaced with…relief. Pure, unadulterated relief.

"I think that did it," Hughes said lightly, smiling for the first time in what seemed like months. Ed smiled as well, but the smile fell as Roy started trying to push himself up.

"Whoa, whoa, Roy, you can't get up yet," Ed said, leaning forward again to push Roy back down.

To his surprise, Roy relaxed back against his blanket pillow without a protest, reaching up and taking hold of Ed's flesh hand. "Don't," he whispered, his eyelids flickering closed. He was so tired, but he wouldn't – couldn't – sleep until he knew Ed wouldn't leave. "I changed my mind," he said as the barest hint of that old Roy smile pulled at the corners of his lips, "I don't want you to go."

The smile crept back onto Ed's face, and he gave Roy's hand a gentle squeeze. "That's good, 'cause I'm not going anywhere."


End file.
